CONFIDENTIAL & PERSONAL
BRIEF
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HONG KONG: SIR YUET KEUNG KAN'S CALL ON THE PERMANENT UNDER- SECRETARY (3.00 PM, 7 JUNE)
1.
Sir Y K Kan wishes to recommend to the PUS that the Governor's term of office should be extended beyond October 1977. In his telegram no. 493 the Governor explains his attempts to head off this initiative and advises that the meeting would help to clear the air. The Governor also suggests that the PUS might take the opportunity to express concern that what is done and said in Hong Kong should be politically defensible here.
Sir Yuet Keung Kan
2. Sir Yuet Keung Kan (usually referred to in conversation as "Sir Y K") is the Senior Member of the Hong Kong Executive Council. This consists of 5 ex officio Members and 9 appointed Members. There is an Unofficial majority and Sir Y K Kan, by virtue of his seniority, is regarded by the Unofficials on both the Executive and Legislative Councils as their spokesman, vis-a-vis the Governor, and on occasion, HMG. A personality note is attached.
Governorship of Hong Kong
3. We have received a number of petitions from Hong Kong institutions requesting that the Governor's term of office should be extended, notably one from a large group of Kai Fong (local community welfare) Associations. This activity may have been sparked off by a remark made by the Governor during a television interview on 18 February when he indicated that he expected, like other members of the Diplomatic Service, to retire about his Flag 60th birthday. In his telegram no. 194 the Governor advised that ~KK
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courtesy and generally start appearing some 18 months before a Governor retires; and that a suave acknowledgement was all that was required. Sir Y K Kan's initiative is however a more serious matter. We neither wish to give the impression that his
representations were being dismissed out of hand; nor to undermine the Governor's attempts to reconcile the Unofficials to the possibility of his retirement in 1977.
CONFIDENTIAL & PERSONAL